What is it about?
In situations of cumulative trauma, it is often unclear why some people remain resilient, whereas others experience distress, and how likely these responses are to change over time. A Follow-up study on the consequences of exposure to continual threat on young children and mothers was conducted to investigate the constancy of responses to cumulative trauma, stability and change in posttraumatic distress and resistance (as defined by no evidence of clinical symptoms). The participants included 140 Israeli children and mothers exposed to continual rocket attacks over approximately 7 years, when the children were 2–4 (Time 1) and 9–11 years of age (Time 2).
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Why is it important?
To best treat mothers after a trauma, it is important to ascertain what differentiates chronically distressed mothers and recovered mothers, as well as consistently resilient mothers and mothers who developed symptoms.
Perspectives
Clinicians working with traumatized children who manifest behavioral symptoms need to be aware of the fact that the child’s recovery is highly entangled with, or even dependent upon his or her mother’s mental health. Family interventions are thus of paramount importance, as children’s and mothers’ distress is highly interwoven and each will continue to impact the other unless targeted as a whole.
Professor Ruth Pat-Horenczyk
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Stability and Change in Posttraumatic Distress: A 7-Year Follow-Up Study of Mothers and Young Children Exposed to Cumulative Trauma, Journal of Traumatic Stress, April 2017, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1002/jts.22177.
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